For the Scottish footballer, see Ian Rankin (footballer). For the Canadian politician, see Iain Rankin (politician).

Ian James Rankin, OBE, DL, FRSE, FRSL (born 28 April 1960) is a Scottish crime writer, best known for his Inspector Rebusnovels.

Early life[edit]

Rankin was born in Cardenden, Fife. His father, James, owned a grocery shop, and his mother, Isobel, worked in a school canteen.[3] He was educated at Beath High School, Cowdenbeath. His parents were horrified when he then chose to study literature at university, expecting him to study for a trade.[3] Encouraged by his English teacher, he persisted and graduated in 1982 from the University of Edinburgh, where he also worked on a doctorate on Muriel Spark but did not complete it.[4] He has taught at the university and retains an involvement with the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He lived in Tottenham, London, for four years and then rural France for six while he developed his career as a novelist.[5] Before becoming a full-time novelist, he worked as a grape picker, swineherd, taxman, alcohol researcher, hi-fi journalist, college secretary and punk musician in a band called the Dancing Pigs.[6][7][3]

Career[edit]

Rankin did not set out to be a crime writer. He thought his first novels, Knots and Crosses and Hide and Seek, were mainstream books, more in keeping with the Scottish traditions of Robert Louis Stevenson and even Muriel Spark. He was disconcerted by their classification as genre fiction. The Scottish novelistAllan Massie, who tutored Rankin while Massie was writer-in-residence at the University of Edinburgh, reassured him by saying, "Do you think John Buchan ever worried about whether he was writing literature or not?"[8]

Rankin's Inspector Rebus novels are set mainly in Edinburgh. They are considered major contributions to the tartan noir genre. Ten of the novels were adapted as a television series on ITV, starring John Hannah as Rebus in series 1 and 2 and Ken Stott in that role in series 3–5.

In 2009, Rankin donated the short story "Fieldwork" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Rankin's story was published in the Earth collection.[9]

In 2009 Rankin stated on Radio Five Live that he would start work on a five- or six-issue run on the comic book Hellblazer, although he may turn the story into a stand-alone graphic novel instead. The Vertigo Comics panel at WonderCon 2009 confirmed that the story would be published as a graphic novel, Dark Entries, the second release from the company's Vertigo Crime imprint.[10][11][12]

In 2013, Rankin co-wrote the play Dark Road with Mark Thomson, the artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre's.[13][14] The play, which marked Rankin's play-writing debut,[15] premiered at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, in September 2013.[16]

Documentaries[edit]

Rankin is a regular contributor to the BBC Two arts programme Newsnight Review. His 3-part documentary series on the subject of evil was broadcast on Channel 4 in December 2002. In 2005 he presented a 30-minute documentary on BBC Four called Rankin on the Staircase, in which he investigated the relationship between real-life cases and crime fiction. It was loosely based on the Michael Peterson murder case, as covered in Jean-Xavier Lestrade's documentary series Death on the Staircase. The same year he collaborated with folk musician Jackie Leven on the album Jackie Leven Said.

In 2007, Rankin appeared in programmes for BBC Four exploring the origins of his alter-ego character, John Rebus. Titled "Ian Rankin's Hidden Edinburgh" and "Ian Rankin Investigates Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde," Rankin looks at the origins of the character and the events that led to his creation.

In the TV show Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, he takes a trip through Edinburgh with writer/cook Anthony Bourdain.

Personal life[edit]

He lives in Edinburgh with his wife, Miranda, whom he met at university and married in 1986, and their two sons, Jack and Kit, who were 23 and 21 in 2015.[3] They live near the authors JK Rowling, Alexander McCall Smith and Kate Atkinson.[17] Rankin appears as a character in McCall Smith's 2004 novel, 44 Scotland Street.

In 2011 a group of ten book sculptures were deposited around Edinburgh as gifts to cultural institutions and the people of the city. Many of the sculptures made reference to the work of Rankin, and an eleventh sculpture was a personal gift to him.[18]

Awards and honours[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

To date he has published 25 novels, two short story collections, one original graphic novel and one novella, and a non-fiction book. He has also written a Quick Reads title.

Other publications[edit]

Edited anthology

Criminal Minded (2000) (edited and with an introduction by Rankin)

Recordings

Graphic novels

Graphic novella

The Lie Factory, illustrated by Tim Truman. Published as part of a CD package, Kickback City, featuring Rory Gallagher songs fictionalized in the novella and with a narration by Aidan Quinn

"Adventures in Babysitting" (1995) (published in No Alibi and in Master's Choice Two)

"Principles of Accounts" (1995) (published in EQMM, August)

"Window of Opportunity" (1995) (Rebus, published in EQMM, December)

"Natural Selection" (1996) (published in Fresh Blood)

"Herbert in Motion" (1996) (published in Perfectly Criminal)[21]

"The Wider Scheme" (1996) (published in EQMM, August)

"My Shopping Day" (1997) (Rebus; published in Herbert in Motion & Other Stories [limited edition chapbook of 200 copies]; not included in the UK edition of The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories, but included in the U.S. edition)

"No. 79" (1997) (published in Herbert in Motion & Other Stories)

"Glimmer" (1998) (published in Blue Lightning)

"Unknown Pleasures" (1998) (published in Mean Time)

"Detective Novels: The Pact Between Authors and Readers" (1998) (article; published in The Writer, December)

"Death is Not the End" (1998) (novella later expanded into Dead Souls)

"The Missing" (1999) (published in Crime Wave, March)

"Get Shortie" (1999) (Rebus; published in Crime Wave 2, Deepest Red, June; not included in the UK and US editions of The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories)

"The Acid Test" (1999) (Rebus; published in EQMM, August; not included in the UK and US editions of The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories)

"Tell Me Who to Kill" (2003) (Rebus; published in Mysterious Pleasures)

"Saint Nicked" (2003/2004) (published in The Radio Times, 21 December 2003 & 4 January 2004)

"Soft Spot" (2005) (published in Dangerous Women)

"Showtime" (2005) (published in One City)

"Not Just another Saturday" (August 2005) (written for SNIP, a charity organisation; people in attendance of the event were provided with a "typescript" of the story)

"Atonement" (2005) (written for the anthology Complete Short Stories, which combined the contents of A Good Hanging & Other Stories and Beggar's Banquet, but was far from "Complete")

"Sinner: justified" (2006) (published in Superhumanatural)

"Graduation Day" (2006) (published in Murder in the Rough)

"Fieldwork" (2009) (published in Ox-Tales)[9]

"Penalty Clause" (2010) (Rebus; published in Mail on Sunday, December)

"The Very Last Drop" (2013) (Rebus; written to read aloud at an Edinburgh charity event to help the work of Royal Blind; published in the US and UK editions of The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories)

"Dead and Buried" (2013) (Rebus; published with Saints of the Shadow Bible)

"In the Nick of Time" (2014) (Rebus; published in Face Off)

"The Passenger" (2014) (Rebus; published in the UK and US editions of The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories)

"A Three-Pint Problem" (2014) (Rebus; published in the UK and US editions of The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories)

"Cinders" (2015) (Rebus; published in the US edition of The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories)

"The Kill Fee" (2015) (published in The New Statesman December 18, 2015--January 8, 2016)

"Cafferty's Day" (2016) (Rebus; published with Rather be the Devil)

"Charades" (2017) (Rebus; published in Country Life December 13/20)

Other

"Oxford Bar" (2007) (Essay published in the anthology How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors)[42]

"John Rebus" (2007) (Mysterious Profile #8, a chapbook published by the Mysterious Bookshop in NYC in a signed limited hardcover edition of 100 copies and 1,000 softcover copies; reprinted in the UK edition of The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories as "Rankin on Rebus")